Thunderbolt 3 Bus-Powered Flash External Storage Update

A popular accessory for the MacBook Pro is fast, external, bus-powered storage devices useful for backup, archiving, and/or "sneaker" net. Two new Thunderbolt 3 bus-powered products entered the fray: Samsung X5 and G-Driv mobile Pro. Let's see how they compare to the competition.

LARGE SEQUENTIAL
We used AJA System Test to benchmark file level sequential transfer speed using a 16GB test file. HIGHER number in megabytes per second = FASTEST

WHAT DID WE LEARN?The large sequential READ speed of these Thunderbolt 3 bus-powered flash drives rivals that of the 2018 MacBook Pro. However, the large sequential WRITE speed is slower -- and varies wildly from product to product.

The newest drives, the Samsung X5 and G-Drive Mobile Pro, are advertised as "Up to 2800 MB/s Sequential Read." The best average we measured was 2648 MB/s. The best peak speed was 2672 MB/s. (NOTE: Those numbers were using a .5 meter TB3 cable. When we used a 2 meter cable, the maximum reached was a slower 2533 MB/s.)

The G-Drive Mobile Pro disappointed us when it exhibited thermal throttling of write speed even in our 6 second test using AJA System Test. As you can see from the image below, it would start has high as 2453MB/s and drop to 1400MB/s after 2 seconds and briefly dipped as low as 500MB/s. In a 20 second run, it stabilized at 1400MB/s so we published that number in our graph.

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WHERE TO BUY THE SAMSUNG X5 PORTABLE SSD
It is in stock at B&H Photo Video in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities.

WHERE TO BUY THE G-TECHNOLOGY G-DRIVE MOBILE PRO
It is in stock at B&H Photo Video in 500GB and 1TB capacities.

WHERE TO BUY THE OWC ENVOY PRO EX (VE)Order direct from Other World Computing (MacSales.com) or from B&H Photo Video in capacities from 1TB to 2TB.

WHERE TO BUY THE TEKQ RAPIDEThe updated version with the NEW Phison E12 TLC flash blade is sold on Amazon. If it shows as 'unavailable,' it means 'temporarily out of stock.' If you don't want to wait, contact Alister Chen (alister@tekq.com) at the factory in Taiwan.